Cartographic Web Applications – Developments and Trends

In the last 5 years, new techniques are conquering the internet and the web mapping domain. New input devices such as multitouch devices with an interesting potential for cartographic navigation applications appeared, while mobile devices are used for Location Based Services and to access the web. Generally, web cartography shifted to a distributed and service-oriented cartography, serving individual maps on-demand for each single purpose. Since in this process the demands of map users on web maps changed from more general to individual information visualizations, also the web techniques in the background changed. What can cartographers expect from new techniques such as spatial databases, JSON, Web Map Services or Rich Internet Applications (RIA)? What are the potential and limits of the new techniques for cartographic web applications? In this paper, an overview of the current technical developments is given and their influence on web cartography and their applications as well as advantages and disadvantages are discussed.